[plug] Microsoft's insidious domination in Australian schools

[Gavin Chester]

   >-----Original Message-----
   >From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au]On
   >Behalf Of Patrick Coleman
   >Sent: Saturday, 6 May 2006 13:21
   >To: plug at plug.org.au
   >Subject: Re: [plug] Microsoft's insidious domination in Australian
   >schools

-snip-

   >> Apparently, higher powers in head office dictate
   >> that every computer located in any government school across
   >the whole State
   >> MUST run Microsoft - even if the hardware on which it runs is donated.
   >
   >Teachers were also apparently offered laptops by the education
   >department a few years ago, and she mentioned that they were given the
   >choice of Acers or Macs. She went for the Acer, because at that point
   >she'd never heard much about macs, but I heard she was intending to
   >switch to the mac at the next upgrade cycle after she saw one of her
   >collegues using one.

Forgive me if I'm missing something here :-/ ...  I seen a couple of
replying posts that make the same reference to some schools/teachers using
Macs.  Mac may use its own OS (until OSX, that is) but that still means that
_every_ other piece of software on that machine is probably Microsoft.  So,
I don't get the point of making this distinction because MS have nearly
always written a Mac version of anything they code, surely?  Anyway, the
point of the campaign (and that's what my original intention it seems to
have become now) is that it's a case of proprietary software versus FOSS in
WA schools.  Mac (hardware and software) is still _very_ proprietary, even
if not as insidious or all-pervasive as MS.

Regards, Gavin.